Posts Tagged ‘Nunavut’

Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15 is Canada’s national exhibition at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia. It is organized and curated by Lateral Office of Toronto.

Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15 surveys a recent architectural past, a current urbanizing present, and a projective near future of adaptive architecture in Nunavut. Nunavut, which means “our land”, is Canada’s newest, largest, and most northerly territory. It separated from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999 following a hard-fought land claims agreement established in 1993. Today, there are almost 33,000 people living in 25 communities across two million square kilometres, making Nunavut one of the least densely populated regions in the world. These communities, located above the tree line and with no roads connecting them, range in population from 120 in the smallest hamlet to 7,000 in Nunavut’s capital city of Iqaluit. The climate, geography, and people of Nunavut, as well as the wider Canadian Arctic, challenge the viability of a universalizing modernity.

Acting against gravity is a familiar Human desire, the most primitive form of body play that inspires many needs. The need to densification is not an exception. Vertical expansion is not only a solution to densify lands, but also a desire to be on top of every visible height. What if instead of the question of density the reason to create a tower was to respect a primitive joy: the joy of heights! Cities in the glory of skyscrapers such as New York, Tokyo, and Hong Kong are perhaps examples of many successful vertical densities, but what difference does height make if people who only share an address still see urban structures at their eye level.